


Good Help is Hard to Find

by Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)



Category: The Tick (TV 1994)
Genre: Affection, Flirting, Foreplay, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Manhandling, Missing Scene, Mutants, Mutual Attraction, Romance, Size Difference, Unusual foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28065744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/pseuds/Cousin%20Shelley
Relationships: Chairface Chippendale/Dean
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Good Help is Hard to Find

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeadlyWeiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadlyWeiss/gifts).



Chairface Chippendale sometimes wondered if he’d revealed too much about his private life to his friends over the years. All of them were mutants and criminals, so they were hardly a group quick to judge others, but one never knew what odd biases people might have. And he’d gotten so careless about hiding his feelings. 

Once, Chairface, Chromedome and Forehead were trying to open a bank vault—not for the money, of course, but because this particular bank had been advertised as robbery proof and Chairface loved a challenge. One of the nighttime security guards was massive with arms and thighs as thick as tree trunks.

Chromedome was using a new invention of his to try to overcome the computerized locking system. It was taking far longer than he’d anticipated, so Forehead had stomped his foot and scowled. “Come on, Professor. That security guard’s going to catch us!”

Chairface hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the big guard since his first glimpse. He mumbled, “Not entirely sure I’d mind.” 

When everyone’s eyes turned to him, he’d waved his hand and scoffed. “Just trying to lighten the mood. _Hurry up, Professor!_ ”

Three months ago, he’d gone to a Criminal Mastermind conference where he’d sat between Eyebrows Mulligan and Boils. One of the waiters filling water glasses was tall and thick with big capable hands. Mulligan had elbowed Chairface halfway through the meal and nodded in that waiter’s direction. “You keep staring at him. Know him from somewhere?”

“No, it’s just hard not to stare at something so—” He’d caught himself before he said _beautiful,_ but his meaning seemed to come through anyway. He watched those thickets of brows rise up Mulligan’s forehead, then fall over his eyes. 

Just a few weeks ago when he’d been with a few close friends crowing about his _mostly_ -secret plan to write his name on the moon with the professor’s new heat ray, Sheila Eel had been so impressed she’d given him a zap and said she’d like to really light him up. 

Chairface had chuckled. “I’m flattered, my dear, but I’m afraid my bat only swings one way.”

He’d cleared his throat and continued talking about the moon, wondering why the hell he found himself saying such things. Perhaps he’d been hiding who he was for too long, and now that his name was going to be visible to the whole world, there was little need to hide anything else. 

_Soon_. It was finally his birthday, and all his friends had come to his party. None of them would ever be able to outdo _his name written on the moon._

He’d been sprawled on his favorite throne-chair, fingering a box of jewels, mostly diamonds, as if he hadn’t already stolen dozens of baubles just like those. He was in such a good mood about the moon, he really did try not to seem ungrateful. He’d failed, but it was his birthday, so he could behave however he wanted, couldn’t he?

“More gifts!” 

“Happy birthday, Chairface. I hope you like him. He’s Dean, my best henchman. He has the strongest hands in the criminal world.”

Chairface took the end of the yellow ribbon that was attached to the lapel of the gargantuan man who, like him, didn’t have a human face.

Dean took the diamond Chairface held and closed it in his beefy fist with a _crunch_. When Dean opened his hand to reveal sparkly diamond powder, blood rushed down Chairface’s body and settled between his legs. 

Any mild worries he’d had about revealing too much of himself turned to dust like that diamond. 

“Oh, I _like_ him,” he said. Good god, what wasn’t to like? Dean was like him, a mutant, and he was so big. So very, very large. And apparently despite his intimidating size he didn’t mind being led to his new boss on the end of a gift-wrapping ribbon like it was a leash.

Chairface wrapped the end of the ribbon around his fist. “So he’s my henchman now, or do I just get to borrow him for my birthday?”

“Oh no, he’s yours forever, Chairface.”

“Oh.” _Oh my._ “Then perhaps you should all excuse me while I show Dean around his new home. Anything else would be the height of inhospitality, and as I’m sure you realize, that is something Chairface Chippendale cannot abide.”

He led Dean by the ribbon out of the room and straight to a library off his bedroom. 

“So,” Chairface said, as he sat in a large leather chair and sprawled the way he had been in his throne-chair. Dean stood directly in front of him. “You’re Dean.”

Chairface laced his fingers together and waited while Dean merely tipped his upper body forward, his equivalent of a nod, Chairface supposed. 

“Ooh, the strong and silent type. I do really like you, Dean. Not to be indelicate, but while I have a chair for a face, you have a wingnut that I presume you can . . . screw up and down.” Chairface was slightly embarrassed that he actually giggled on the word _screw_. 

Dean tipped forward in a nod. Then his huge hand raised and he tapped one side of the nut with a fingertip. It slowly spun down the threads about an inch, emitting a soft, high-pitched squeak with each revolution. 

Chairface noticed Dean’s tie was decorated with screws, and more heat rushed down his body. 

“The strongest hands in the criminal world,” he mused. “So you can really . . . pound things, can’t you?”

Dean tipped forward. 

“And grasp things,” he said, clutching both his hands into fists and shaking them. “Hold them fast so they can’t escape. Squeeze just about anything into submission, I suppose.” 

_Tip._

Chairface fought another bout of excited laughter. “How _wonderful_. Could you . . . would you mind giving me another demonstration or two before I give you that tour?” Chairface raced around the room and grabbed an empty humidor someone had given him as a gift last year and a stone paperweight he’d always thought was ugly. 

He handed the humidor to Dean. “Smash it!”

Dean pressed his hands together in a slow clap and splintered the box. When he rubbed his palms, sawdust drifted to the floor. 

Nearly bouncing, Chairface put the stone paperweight on the floor in front of him “Oh, do _pound_ it, Dean!”

Dean bent over and brought his fist down directly on the round stone, sending tiny bits of gravel and powder flying in all directions. 

Chairface clapped his hands together. “Impressive. One last demonstration, and then I’m sure my guests will be wondering where we are. Pretend we’re out together committing a crime and someone’s trying to interfere, and I say ‘ _Dean, stop that man!_ ’ and so you grab him to keep him from getting away.”

Chairface held both his arms up. “I want to see just how well you can keep someone from escaping.”

Dean’s body tilted slightly to the side. Then he straightened and grasped both of Chairface’s wrists in his hands. 

“Ohhhhhh,” Chairface breathed. Dean’s hands covered most of his and extended easily halfway to his elbows. The grip was firm, almost uncomfortably tight, but not quite painful. After seeing him crush wood, stone and a diamond, Chairface was aware that he’d barely have to exert himself to crush both of his arms or snap them like twigs. 

Chairface pulled. He tried to twist his arms in Dean’s grip. He ended up with his feet against Dean’s chest for leverage, pushing to try to free himself. Not only could he not budge his arms, nothing moved. Dean and his hands didn’t shift a single iota. It was like being encased in unyielding concrete. 

He lowered his feet to the floor. “Oh, that’s fantastic, my new friend. You can let go now.”

When Dean’s hands loosened, Chairface spun, his back against Dean’s body. “What if he was trying to run from you like this and you couldn’t reach his arms? You could only manage to grab, say, his hips?” 

Chairface leaned forward as if to run, but Dean’s hands clamped over his hips and pulled him back hard against that enormous body. 

Chairface let out a laugh of sheer delight then tried in vain to free himself. This time, instead of nothing budging at all, Dean seemed to pull him closer. After a few moments of struggling, Chairface couldn’t ignore the prominence that poked into his back.

 _He’s huge everywhere_ , Chairface thought with another rush of heat. “Happy birthday to me,” he whispered. 

He used his feet on the floor to get leverage, but Dean lifted him so that his legs flailed against air. The bulge pressed into his buttock now, and he desperately wanted to shift himself back against it, but Dean’s vice-like grip held him fast. 

“I have no doubt, my dear Dean, that you will quickly become my favorite henchman of all time.”

Someone dared to knock on the door. Chairface almost screamed at them to go away, to cancel the party, but he caught a glimpse of the moon through the window. 

“Yes, yes, we’ll be back in a moment. Go away!” he shouted. Then softer he said, “You can let me go now, Dean.”

Dean lowered him to the floor and released his hips. Chairface pressed his palm against the front of his trousers, adjusting himself to try to hide how much Dean’s grip had affected him. “I’m afraid a tour will have to wait since it seems the natives are getting restless.”

He spun and took Dean’s arm, then wrapped the end of the ribbon that still dangled from Dean’s chest around his hand. “Come and see my favorite birthday surprise ever! Well . . . now it’s actually my second favorite, thanks to you.”

The soft squeak of Dean’s wingnut slowly spinning prompted Chairface to squeeze Dean’s arm tighter as they walked back into the crowd. 

* * *

Chairface sat at his dining table, tapping his fingers against the wood, trying to think about his next crime but feeling uninspired. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something moving on the wall. 

“Dean!”

The familiar heavy stomp of Dean rushing to see what he wanted vibrated through Chairface. When Dean hurried up to him, Chairface pointed at the spot on the wall. “Crush it!”

Dean’s body tilted to the side. 

“Oh, very well. But please remove it quickly, it’s distracting me.”

Dean picked up a wine glass from one of the many place settings and used it to put a dome over the small black spider, then he banged his fist once against the wall so that the spider would drop from the wall into the glass. He covered it quickly with his hand and headed out of the room. 

The man could crush diamonds in his fist, and would choke the daylights out of anyone, friend or foe, if Chairface asked him to. But he was also such a softy, he captured insects and released them outside instead of smashing them. Chairface loved that about him. 

Dean came back after he’d released the trespassing spider, and put what Chairface knew was a freshly washed glass back on the table. How he managed to carry something as delicate as a stemmed wine glass without accidentally breaking it, Chairface didn’t know. 

Dean stood next to him as if waiting for some other task, but Chairface was merely in the mood to think and wait. Dozens of guests would be arriving in about six hours for his banquet in honor of World Criminal Mastermind Appreciation Day. It had taken so long to escape from prison after his birthday and even longer to free his friends, he’d almost forgotten the holiday. Only a glance at the calendar as he was getting settled in his new home reminded him. 

He regretted hosting the party this year, though, and wished he’d forgotten altogether. All he really wanted was a nice private night spent alone with Dean. And he thought, he hoped, Dean wanted the same. 

He’d chosen Dean’s gift for the occasion so carefully, and had planned for tonight to be the night when they went beyond being mere a criminal mastermind and his favorite henchman. They’d been separated the very night they met, before they’d had much time alone together at all, and had been apart for weeks during their time in prison. They’d hugged when Chairface broke him out of his cell, but for several days things had stayed quite formal. They’d both been so busy getting the house in order, and now that all the arrangements had been made for the banquet, it was the first time they’d really had leisure time. 

They had about six hours. That was plenty of time. He was dying to know what Dean thought of his gift. 

“I had planned to wait until after the party to give you your gift, Dean. But I’m bored. Would it be all right if I gave it to you now?”

Dean tipped forward and then held up a hand, finger extended. He hurried from the room, rattling the plates and glasses on the table with every step, then reappeared with a small wrapped box, the gold and silver paper glinting in the sunlight coming through the window. 

Dean had gotten him a gift, too! He didn’t even care what was in the box, he loved it already.

Chairface led him to the library. From behind some books arranged to hide it, he produced a box he hadn’t wrapped as beautifully as Dean’s gift to him. The paper was a similar pattern to the ties Dean favored. He couldn’t find one covered in screws, but little nuts, bolts and wrenches decorated the striped tan design. 

Dean took it, the box dwarfed by his hand. 

“You don’t have to be delicate with the paper, Dean.” Chairface clapped his hands together. “Tear it open!” 

Dean did, tearing the box as well, which left an old-fashioned oil can sitting it in the palm of his hand. Chairface had insisted on the vintage style. “Synthetic lubricant that works as well as oil without all the things those crazy environmentalists screech about these days. I assure you it’s top quality.”

Dean’s wingnut slowly turned with a soft squeak. 

“Allow me?” Chairface took the oil can from Dean’s big hands.

Dean leaned over to give him easier access, so Chairface placed the tip of the nozzle against the steel threads and pressed against the bottom with his thumb. The _wucka-wucka-wucka_ of the can seemed so loud while he waited to see Dean’s reaction, but he loved the sound of it. 

When Dean straightened, his wingnut gliding down the threads smoothly, silently, his shoulders dropped and everything about his posture read to Chairface as delight. Chairface stood with the oil can in his hand, watching Dean visibly relax, a tension building in his own body. 

Dean snapped to attention and picked up his gift for Chairface. He held it out, his wingnut spinning back up more quickly. 

Chairface wanted to tear it open like an animal, he could only imagine what it might be—maybe it was something strong and beautiful that Dean would smash in front of him. But the sparkling paper was creased so perfectly he didn’t have the heart. He loosened the tape with care and removed the paper in one intact piece. When he opened the cardboard box, he gasped and put a hand on his chest. 

His gift was an expensive-looking bottle of lemon oil and the softest cotton cloth he’d ever touched. “We’re much alike, you and I, aren’t we, Dean? I . . . I look forward to using this. All that time behind bars, and I haven’t been moisturizing like I should.”

Dean took the oil and the cloth from him and waited, tilted just a touch to the side, his question clear to Chairface. 

“Oh _yes,_ Dean. Yes, _please_.”

Dean poured some of the oil onto the cloth while Chairface leaned forward in anticipation. As soon as the cloth touched him, he sighed. His shoulders slumped in bliss as Dean rubbed the oil into one of his spindles. He shivered in pleasure as Dean oiled and buffed every inch of wood, so very tenderly for a man with such powerful, large hands. 

When Dean was finished, he put the cloth and the bottle of oil aside. Chairface stepped closer and lay his hands on Dean’s wide, hard chest. “Thank you for my gift, Dean. And the way you presented it to me. You know, for someone who could so easily _manhandle_ me, and believe me, I would not object to you doing that under certain circumstances, you have a surprisingly gentle touch when you want to.”

Dean’s hands touched his shoulders, slid carefully down his arms, over his elbows to his hips. Dean’s grip tightened, and he pulled Chairface’s body against his, wingnut slowly, silently, turning. 

“ _Frederick!_ ” Chairface shouted without moving a muscle. 

Within seconds, one of his employees, a short and balding man with a thick moustache who was already dressed in a tuxedo-style uniform for the party, swung open the door. “Yes, Mr. Chippendale?”

“Cancel the banquet.”

“Cancel—but—it’s in a matter of hours sir.” He rubbed his moustache, hand shaking. “We won’t even be able to reach some of the guests before they arrive! I don’t—how—but—”

“Very well! But when the guests arrive, inform them I won’t be attending.”

“You’re not attending the World Criminal Mastermind Appreciation Day banquet that _you’re_ hosting?”

“No.” He stopped the wingnut’s movement with his hand and slowly turned it in the opposite direction. Dean’s chest expanded with a shudder, encouraging him. “I’ve found a much better way to spend the evening.”

“So . . . should I—”

“No, don’t tell them _that_. Simply tell them I’m otherwise engaged, but they should enjoy themselves. And I’m not to be disturbed for the rest of the night, Frederick, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

When the door closed, Chairface began loosening Dean’s tie. “Now that we have the evening to ourselves without the bother of having to entertain guests, do you think we might . . . find other uses for our gifts?”

Dean leaned forward, gripping Chairface’s hips tight in his meaty hands. 

“You could put to rest a question I’ve had since the night we met.”

Dean’s wingnut turned slightly, and Chairface realized he rather missed the squeak. 

“Well you’re such a large specimen, aren’t you? Such a big body, and big hands, and big feet. And from what I felt when you held me against you . . . I got the distinct sense that every single part of you was just as impressive. Is that true?” He twirled his fingertip in a circle on Dean’s chest. 

Dean took a step back. He unbuttoned his shirt and yanked it out of his pants, then unbuttoned and unzipped and let everything slide down to mid-thigh. Chairface stared. Oh yes. Every part of Dean was huge. 

Dean unbuttoned the top two buttons of Chairface’s vest, being so careful. Were his hands shaking? 

“Please don’t be delicate, Dean. You know how I love your displays of strength. Why else do you think I’m always asking you to . . . _pound_ things.” If he’d had a human face, he’d have blushed and batted his eyes. 

Dean didn’t hesitate. He yanked at the vest, sending buttons pinging off in a few directions, and made just as quick work of Chairface’s shirt. His big fist grabbed the front of Chairface’s trousers and yanked, and in seconds they were pooled at his feet so that he stood before Dean only wearing his gloves. 

“Brute,” he whispered, and slid a hand over Dean’s chest. “I _love_ it.”

Dean’s arms wrapped around him

“ _Tighter_.”

Dean obliged. Oh, this was perfect. _Dean_ was perfect. He just wanted one more thing. He turned in Dean’s arms. 

“If I tried to get away, my struggles would be totally useless wouldn’t they? You’d capture me in your vicelike grip and manhandle me, wouldn’t you?” 

When Dean didn’t react, Chairface turned to speak over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t you?” he said, hoping he didn’t have to beg. 

Dean’s hands clamped onto his hips and pulled Chairface against him hard enough it knocked the breath from him. Then he pressed Chairface down so he was bent over his own desk. Chairface tried to push back against Dean, but a hand between his shoulderblades and the man’s considerable weight kept him still. Any of Dean’s remaining hesitation disappeared. He seemed eager to do everything Chairface had hoped for. 

When Dean’s fist wrapped around him, firmer than he’d ever gripped himself in the throes of pleasure, Chairface almost swooned.

“Keep this up, Dean, and not only will you be my favorite henchman, you’ll definitely be in the running to win employee of the month.”

Dean, as if reading Chairface’s mind, made it stunningly clear why he deserved that reward. 

* * *

Several weeks later, Chairface entered Dean’s bedroom and handed him the large gold trophy on its wooden base, the gold-tone plate engraved with DEAN glinting in the light. 

“Congratulations.” He turned Dean’s wingnut clockwise, then counterclockwise, no more than a quarter turn each way. “I ordered you a particularly nice trophy for employee of the month, considering it’s the last one I’ll need to give. As long as you’re still my henchman, _you win_.”

Dean put it carefully on a shelf. He buffed it with a cloth, dusted the shelf around it, and turned it back and forth until it was centered just right. Then he stepped away and tilted to the side, waiting. 

“Looks lovely there, Dean. But I have to admit, I was almost hoping you’d take your fantastic fists and smash it.”

Dean put a hand on his own chest, as if taken aback at the suggestion. His wingnut turned back and forth. 

“Very well. It’s not as if there aren’t several other things around here that could use a good . . . _pounding_.”

To Chairface's delight, Dean straightened and dropped the cloth. He knew the game well by now, and they had no plans for the evening. Chairface spun and walked away, faster than casual, then chuckled to himself when he heard Dean's heavy footfalls rushing behind him, and massive, warm hands grabbed his hips. 


End file.
